Chapter Five
We dropped in to visit Laguna later that night, before the sun set. I wasn't too smitten with the idea of walking alone with just Elle after dark, even with all the Galbadian soldiers around.
"Raine! Elle! You actually came!" Laguna grinned, opening the door before I even had a chance to knock. "Come in!"
I walked in and was slightly disturbed by the sight. I hadn't realized this place was so messy...
"Laguna, did you mess it up this bad?"
"Raine, I swear on the soul of any person I've ever met that it was already mostly like this," he held up his hands, an innocent look on his face.
"...I'll give you a discount on your rent if you clean the place up."
"I'll get around to it," Laguna made a face, and Elle laughed. I sighed. What had I been thinking earlier, anyways? "So, whaddya think?! Isn't this great?!"
"It's great!" Elle beamed.
"It's a wreck," I sighed.
"Oh, c'mon, Raine…sometimes things might be a wreck on the outside, but it's on the inside that counts, right?"
I wondered if he was trying to tell me something, judging by his white t-shirt that was slightly pink from washing it in with darker colors and mismatched socks. I settled for just staring at him. I didn't mind it all that much, and it typically made him mad, something I enjoyed doing. Mainly because he didn't really get mad…sure, it annoyed him, but he over-exaggerated everything. It always ended up proving to be interesting.
"Raine!" he squawks after a moment, and I have to smile. He's rather funny. "Okay, how about I take you all on a tour of the house?"
I already know my way through it. I was friends with Elle's parents before they died, and this had been their house. I wondered if Elle remembered it. I kind of give Laguna a 'look'. If this is going to bring back bad memories for her, I don't want to go through with it.
"Yeah! That sounds like fun!" Elle giggled.
"Well," he sighed, "I just remembered…I can't."
"Aw, how come, Uncle Laguna?" she pouted.
"It's so messy up there, that if we went up there…I'd lose you!" he exclaimed, messing up her hair. She laughed and pushed him away. He fell backward and into the couch, scooting it a few inches. Elle looked surprised and ran to his side.
"Uncle Laguna?" she whispered. "Are yoo okay?"
"Oohhh…" he groans, closing his eyes, then jumping up and grabbing her. She squeals with glee, and I wish I had enough energy to keep up with her like that sometimes. Laguna tucks her under his arm and I'm a little nervous. He's holding her the same way he holds a sack of potatoes, or charcoal, or whatever it is he's carelessly carrying to the restaurant when I had him running errands for me. "You up for hot chocolate, Elle?"
"It's too close to bed," I say out of instinct.
"Oh, c'mon, Raine! Just a little cup? Just an ittle-bitty-teensy-weensy—"
"—Okay! Fine, but just a little cup," I concede defeat, and Laguna grins.
"Thank you!" he and Elle run into the kitchen.
The armloads of stuff Laguna brought from my house to here are laying in the floor. I sigh and sit down on the old couch, folding his stuff. It's all wrinkled. He's going to look like he slept in his clothes when he wears them, I think to myself. I come across a few other things—a picture with him and his friends, all his military information, random job applications…and, oddly, things that look like drafts of newspaper articles. There's everything he's written, but he's got boxes where pictures should go. I remember him saying something once about wanting to be a journalist, but I didn't realize how serious he is. I wonder if he'll quit the army…he said he wanted to do that too. But if he quits that…there's a 90% chance he'll end up in Timber. That's the best place to be for journalism right now. I lay those papers to another side, face down so that he doesn't think I've been intruding. It's after I've folded his jacket that I find the small black notebook.
It's so inconspicuous that it's almost suspicious. I flip it open, looking at the first day. It's dated for August 19th, about twelve years ago. Laguna would have been 10 if he's 22 like he says, but since he says he's going into his freshman year of high school in the paper, I have a feeling he's been lying about his age. The freshman year entries aren't very interesting. Neither are most of the high school ones…they're mainly thoughts. Most of them are actually very deep, for a high school boy, heck, for Laguna…I flip further and find more recent ones. These tell stories of his time in the army, his friends Kiros Seagill and Ward Zabak, a girl from a bar he's rather attracted to…I feel my heart fall, though I can't explain it. Even more recent entries—these must take place sometime after Laguna's 'escape', because he mentions Elle's name in a lot of them. At the top of one entry from about a month ago, it says in messy letters, 'I hope Julia's doing okay, but I really don't think I miss her that much anymore…' Underneath he tells about his and Elle's latest adventure. I smile at how much he loves that kid. It's almost sweet.
I finally, finally see my name mentioned in an entry that's practically a novel. I'm interested, but I hear footsteps. I close it and toss it on top of his jacket, lean back on the couch and close my eyes. About two seconds later, Laguna's shaking me going,
"Wake up, Raine! Me and Elle made hot chocolate!"
…phew…didn't get caught. That's a relief. I'm almost certain that Laguna wouldn't have wanted me reading that. I feel guilty for him seeing me as innocent right now when he doesn't know what I've done. I wonder if I should tell on myself, then decide not to. I can always admit it later, if it bothers me that much.
Elle hops on the couch next to me, and Laguna sits in the floor. Elle finishes the tiny cup of hot chocolate, but doesn't beg for more. Apparently Laguna has given her a speech. Instead, she runs over to him and asks for a marshmallow out of his cup. Naturally, he gives her one.
"Thank you!" she giggles. "Guess what Raine taught me yesterday!"
"Oh, I'll never guess. Tell me! Tell me! Oh, c'mon, Elle, y'gotta tell me!" his eyes grow wide and he gets excited.
"She taught me how to braid hair! Can I braid your hair?!"
"Sure! Make it look good, okay?" he grins to her, and I can't believe he's agreed to this.
"Okay!" she giggles, and starts braiding his hair into two pigtails like she does to mine when I have the time to let her. I watch this scene with quite a lot of amusement. About ten minutes later, Elle's tied off the pigtails with the pink bows that were in her own hair. Laguna grins and runs a hand over the braids fondly.
"Am I beautiful?"
"Uncle Laguna!" Elle giggles.
"Raine, am I beautiful?"
"…Laguna…" I sigh. He's hopeless. I wonder how he made it into the army anyways. "Elle, it's way past your bedtime. We need to go."
"Aw, do we have to?" she whines.
"You've gotta do what Raine says, okay?" Laguna stretches and stands up. "I'll walk you two over there, just incase the cacherpillers get out of hand."
"Buchubuchus!" Elle giggles, and Laguna gives me a questioning look.
"She can't pronounce them, so they're Buchubuchus and Bunbuns."
"Buchubuchus and Bunbuns!" Elle echoes happily.
"Well, I shall protect you from the fierce Buchubuchus and Bunbuns!" Laguna says valiantly, and takes Elle's hand. He looks to me with a cheesy grin and takes mine too. I jerk it away, but he grabs it again. "C'mon, Raine, we don't want to get separated!"
I scowl, even though really it doesn't bother me that much. I don't want him to know that, though. He walks us back across the street.
"Good night, Uncle Laguna!" Elle giggles and runs inside. Laguna smiles after her fondly.
"She's such a sweet kid. Reminds me of my little sister."
"I didn't know you have a little sister," I say conversationally, and he kind of looks away. We drop the subject, and I feel guilty again.
"It's been a pleasure being in your company," Laguna grins.
...I'm speechless. And that's not necessarily a good thing.
"I learned something interesting today. Your restaurant is the only one in town."
"I put everyone else out of business," I smiled vaguely. That's what one of my friends used to tell me, back before they moved. It was our big joke or whatever. Laguna finds this funny and laughs. I'm glad someone thinks it funny.
"I can understand that! However, if I ever wanted to ask you out, I couldn't ask you to your own restaurant, because then you'd have to cook, and I mean, how crappy would that be?"
He looks at me as if waiting for me to slap him or something. Upon seeing that my reaction to his statement is not negative, he smiles and continues.
"So I was wondering if you'd be interested in dinner at the restaurant of the master Chef de Laguna," he looks to me, trying to refrain from looking too hopeful. I can tell. "That way you wouldn't have to cook!"
I do love Winhill, but it's pretty bad when someone has to ask you out to a make-believe restaurant because the only place in town is run by you. I have to smile at his efforts, though. It must be hard, being such a city slicker and then coming to a place like Winhill.
"Sure, Laguna. Sounds like fun," I smile.
"Alright, then, I'll see you Friday?"
"Friday works."
"Thanks, Raine. See ya then!" he grins, waves, and walks back to his house.
I walk in, smiling. Elle giggles and runs over to me.
"So? So? What did you say?"
"…what are you talking about?"
"What did you say?" she asks me, putting emphasis on each word to get her point across.
"What, are you two partners in crime now or something? Did he tell you he was gonna do that?"
"Well did you say yes or no!" she cries impatiently. I have to laugh.
"Yes, Elle. I said yes."
"YESSSS!" she giggles. "Good night, Raine!" she cries happily and runs up to bed. I follow her, still smiling. My ex-housemate and adopted daughter have teamed up against me. This could prove to be interesting.
A/n: Sometimes it's hard to find the motivation to write on this. I feel like it's just like every other Raine/Laguna story out there, but at the same time, we're not given much to work with on this pairing, since Raine only appears three times in the game (Once during the scene with Laguna, once on the broken vase sidequest, and then in the cutscene at the end.) and is with Laguna in only two of them. Basically we're given two scenes to figure out her character (since she doesn't really do anything in the sidequest sighting of her) and how she interacts with Laguna. We find out a lot about her in the one scene on the beginning of disc 2, but at the same time, I believe all characters have multiple sides…and we only see one side there. So, despite it all, was that chapter okay?
…check my bio for the next update date!
Love and peace,
Xifa
Thanks to all the reviewers who've reviewed this chapter…I was so excited when I opened up my inbox to find reviews! It's been a long time - It's been a long time since I've updated, though, too…too preoccupied with Sefie's Rurouni Kenshin manga, and then I think I need to replay through FF8 since I don't remember anything about it… . Really bad when you're writing fanfics. Anyways…special thanks to…
Seth8 – I didn't figure anyone would even read this story after so long…
Karla3 – I found your reviews really inspiring! Thanks! (They were so inspiring, in fact, that I went and read your Matrix/FF8 fanfic and laughed my arse off for however long I spent reading it…and then I remembered you wrote Chance or Choice and decided to go read it too…but…last time I checked it there were only three chapters…now there's like, 13! But I'm gonna get around to reading that asap, since I loved the first three chapters so much - )
Sefie -- …you pester me a lot to work on all the stuff that I'm too lazy to work on…like 'Searching for a Way'. Guess what! I lost chapter two XD So now there's no more writing it, since I cannot remember how it goes, and it is a vital chappy since Aerith finds Sora. No more of it! Muahaha.
Thanks again!
Oh…yeah…I think I misspelled Buchubuchu and cacherpiller. Whatever -